Höppli, Johann Jacob

Pottery manufacturer

Born: 15.07.1822 in Zezikon (town in the municipality of Affeltrangen, Switzerland)

died: 29.10.1876 in Wiesbaden

Höppli, one of the most important pottery manufacturers in Wiesbaden, is commemorated today by a bronze plaque on his former business and residential building at Wörthstraße 4-6. He came from the Swiss canton of Thurgau. In his home country, he had trained as a modeler and sculptor and, at the age of 19, went on the journey, which was common in the trade at the time. In Hamburg, the only known stopover, he wanted to embark for America, but his father asked him not to.

After six years of wandering, he settled in Wiesbaden in 1847. In 1848, Höppli became a partner in Andreas Leicher's Wiesbaden faience factory in Schwalbacher Chaussee (now Emser Straße) and rented a house near the factory. Due to his planned marriage to Johanna Charlotte Amalia Gaab, a daughter of a Wiesbaden citizen, Höppli applied for naturalization in the Wiesbaden municipality in 1860 - until then he had been a citizen of the Swiss municipalities of Untertuttwyl and Zezikon.

With the purchase of his own home and the establishment of a workshop in Dotzheimer Straße in 1863, the first step towards the Jacob Höppli pottery factory was taken. The production of architectural ornaments, in which the Höppli pottery factory specialized, flourished around the middle and in the second half of the 19th century. Soon after setting up his own workshop, Höppli was able to acquire a larger plot of land in Wörthstrasse, which had just been cleared for development. Construction of the new business premises began here in 1872 according to plans by architect Georg Friedrich Fürstchen. However, Höppli did not live to see its completion in 1876.

He was buried in the North Cemetery. His grave was adorned with the figure "Promise" (partially destroyed) by Hermann Schies, a sculptor trained in Berlin, who was long responsible for the models of the figurative representations in the pottery factory.